


Chosen Family

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surreal spends Winsol with Tersa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chosen Family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kshandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kshandra/gifts).



> _Black Jewels_ characters do not belong to me and I am making no money off this work of fan fiction.
> 
> This was meant to be a Christmas 2013 gift-fic, but a frustrating amount of life all happened to me at once, and I didn't get past the first 300 words. I picked it back up, blew the dust off, and finished it for _this_ Christmas.
> 
> * * *

“If you really don’t want to spend Winsol at the Keep with the family...” Saetan said, turning a wineglass in his hand, leaving room for Surreal to say something.

Surreal straightened her back and looked him in the eye. “Not all our family comes to the Keep for Winsol.”

Pain crossed Saetan’s face. “I know,” he said quietly. “And I’m sure that if you spread the word, there will be others who have gifts or messages to send with you.”

“I’m not an errand girl.”

“Nor are Daemon and Jaenelle, but they’ve carried their share of messages at Winsol. So has Lucivar. So have I.”

There was no way that Surreal could argue after that.

It was her turn to take part in an annual tradition that, so far, she hadn’t really been aware of. She’d thought that going to see Tersa was her own idea, but it seemed as if she was just mimicking other members of her found family.

How she hadn’t realized it sooner was beyond her. Mother Night, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t handed over her own gifts to the others over the years to take to her—well, she might have claimed the saDiablo name, but what that made Tersa to her, or her to Tersa, she didn’t exactly know.

It wasn’t as if she’d intended to make a grand charitable gesture by forsaking the festivities of the Keep at Winsol. She’d just purchased Tersa’s gift that day, and the thought had occurred that she might take it in person instead of handing it off to someone else who happened to be going that way. And now here she was, looking at Saetan across his desk, feeling foolish because of _course_ everyone else had had their turn at this.

“I’ll spread the word,” Surreal said.

Saetan inclined his head. “Good.”

Mother _Night_. As if he didn’t have enough to contend with the rest of his family. The last thing he needed was her butting in. She’d just wanted to—to do something _kind_ , not become part of a deeply held family tradition.

She didn’t think she deserved it.

 

Jaenelle looked at her across a steaming, bubbling beaker. “Don’t tell me you really thought you could do this without everyone noticing?”

“I—”

“Besides, you _are_ family now. She may not be your mother, or have chosen you as her child, but there’s no reason for you not to be the one who spends Winsol with her. Is there?”

Surreal was saved from answering when the beaker exploded.

 

“The boyos usually get one gift between the lot of them, but we’ve always preferred to come up with individual gifts.” Karla corked the tiny vial and carefully rolled it in soft tissue paper.

“What’s that?”

“Poison.”

Surreal eyed the package. “That’s your idea of a Winsol gift?”

Karla smiled. “Tersa enjoys the puzzle of figuring out what components go into it and how to create an antidote. It gives her something to do on nights that might otherwise be long and boring.”

“Oh.”

Karla wrapped a second small vial and held it out to Surreal. “I made you one, too. Whether you choose to analyze it or just see what it does to someone you don’t like, I don’t mind.”

Surreal couldn’t keep from smiling, despite trying to guard her reaction.

 

Daemon was the one to give her the package from the ‘boyos’. Or rather, packages. So much for one gift between them, unless it was something they’d deconstructed for Tersa to piece together. Given Tersa’s history—the broken chalice, the broken woman—such a gift seemed insensitive, so it probably wasn’t any such thing. She was doubtless just being far too cautious.

This gift was one that she badly wanted to preview before Tersa opened it. Call it a quirk of the aftermath—the _ongoing_ aftermath—of the spooky house, but she felt she’d earned her inherent distrust of boxes with unexpected contents when they came from men.

Even men she knew well.

But she didn’t open them, didn’t try slitting the paper to peek inside. Like it or not, she’d made the choice to trust these people when she’d taken on the saDiablo name, and she hadn’t had cause to regret it yet. Not really; not deep down, where it counted.

 

Tersa’s face lit up in utter delight when Allista led Surreal into the parlor. At least, what of Tersa’s face Surreal could see around her armful of packages.

“It’s the sharp girl!”

Allista helped Surreal unload the gifts onto the wooden side-table between Tersa’s crackling fireplace and Tersa’s small but shining Winsol tree, before withdrawing to whatever plans she had made for Winsol, leaving Surreal and Tersa alone.

“My boys usually come for Winsol Eve,” Tersa said, sounding only a little confused. “Aren’t they coming this year?”

Surreal called in the cool-box that Mrs. Beale had filled with treats. “I said I would come this year and they let me.” She looked at Tersa, trying to gauge her emotional weather. “You’re not upset that they’re not here?”

Tersa settled into one of the three well-stuffed chairs that faced the fire. Surreal appreciated that the room was nicely warm; she’d been unable to think of a way to ask for it to be warm without _asking_ for it to be warm. “I put out three chairs and three glasses and three plates.”

“It’s all right. I brought someone along for the spare chair.”

Tersa cocked her head. “Who?”

Surreal turned her head to call out, but Graysfang was already bounding in from the doorway where he’d been told to wait.

*Patchwork Lady,* he greeted Tersa.

Tersa’s smile was bright. *Little Brother.*

“He can’t use a glass, but he can have treats on a plate if you don’t mind him licking the china.”

“Boys do like to lick their plates,” Tersa said, scruffing Graysfang affectionately behind the ears.

Surreal fixed plates of treats for each of them, pouring wine for herself and Tersa. Graysfang got water, albeit in a fine china bowl that he seemed anxious about lapping from. At least he was learning which things it was a bad idea to break. The small Winsol tree she’d put up in the townhouse hadn’t survived long.

A semi-comfortable silence fell between them as they sampled the food that Mrs. Beale had sent. It was uncomplicated fare for the most part, but as usual Mrs. Beale had managed to impart a sense of rare delicacy to even the most simple of pastries.

Tersa licked her fingers as unashamedly as Graysfang licked his plate, looking meaningfully at the gifts piled on the table. Surreal followed her gaze and saw a second, smaller pile of gifts underneath the table.

“Who—”

“Yours.”

Surreal eyed the bright packages. “Oh.”

Tersa’s fingers, still a little sticky with honey, closed over hers. “Prickly, pointy girl. When will you learn you can be soft sometimes?”

Surreal closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Her mother wouldn’t have ever suggested she be soft. Titian would have approved of the hardness that Surreal had honed herself to, considering her own fate.

But Titian wasn’t here. Titian wasn’t ever going to be here again.

Surreal opened her eyes again and smiled at Tersa. “Let’s start, then.”

 

The gifts made two towers at either end of the low table in front of the chairs. Tersa moved their plates and glasses into the middle of the table so they could continue to nibble. Graysfang jumped up onto the center chair, curling himself up, bright eyes reflecting the fire.

Tersa opened her first gift—which, by virtue of being the smallest, was Karla’s poison vial—with delight.

“Smell this!” She waved it under Surreal’s nose.

Surreal sniffed delicately. “I can’t smell anything.”

Tersa’s eyes sparkled. “Poison with no smell at all... this _will_ be a puzzle.” She gestured at Surreal’s gifts. “Your turn.”

Surreal studied the wrapping of the first one. It was from Jaenelle, and hadn’t exploded yet, so it was probably safe. She called in her stiletto to carefully slit the paper, wanting to keep it as intact as possible; from prior experience she knew that Graysfang couldn’t be trusted with balled-up paper and ribbons.

She had thought that she had read every book on poisons in the Territories—in Terreille, at least. But Jaenelle knew Territories where she’d never been. This was a composite of knowledge from Territories Kaeleer-wide, of knowledge from places that Surreal would probably never be permitted, but whose denizens had obviously trusted Jaenelle enough to let her write down their secrets.

Wordlessly Surreal held the book out to Tersa, whose sharp indrawn breath indicated that she, too, recognized the treasure for what it was.

“Poison isn’t even my first preference,” Surreal said.

“You can always learn.” The sly smile that Tersa gave her was pure Black Widow.

As they worked their way through the gifts, taking turns to open them, it became apparent that the men had conspired together to give Tersa what was essentially a bulwark against the long, cold nights yet to come. Books, chocolates, and a music box all joined Tersa’s pile of unwrapped gifts. She neatly folded the paper after unwrapping each one, setting it aside. Graysfang, after evincing interest in the rustling for the first few gifts, had fallen asleep.

Surreal’s gifts were completely devoid of anything threatening, or at least anything that was a threat to _her_. Daemon had evidently been conspiring with Jaenelle and Karla; he had provided two small vials of his Black Widow venom—“for theoretical examination and/or practical use”, the accompanying card read. Saetan had given her three thick novels chronicling the life and adventures of a prostitute in a land where prostitutes were held sacred, with a note at the end of the card to say that if she liked them there was another trilogy set following it. Surreal peeked at the first few pages and was hard put not to start devouring the whole book on the spot. The pile of paper by the table grew bigger; the plate of treats diminished.

 

The last of Tersa’s gifts, the one from Jaenelle, proved to be a copy of the book that Jaenelle had made for Surreal. Both of them were handwritten and hand-bound; truly beautiful works, gifts from the heart.

Surreal was comparing them side by side, marveling at how neatly Jaenelle had written them out compared to her untidy scrawl when she was in a rush, when she realized the key difference between the two.

“Tersa.”

“Mmmm?” Tersa was midway through another pastry and it was flaking everywhere. Surreal held the books out to her, wary of the shards of sweet dropping from Tersa’s fingers.

“She’s only given us half each.”

Tersa swallowed and licked her lips. “Half of what?”

“Half of the Kaeleer Territories.” Surreal nodded at the pages she was holding open; the tables of contents were alphabetical and so made it easy to see that each book only listed some of the Territories, not all.

Tersa’s eyes widened. “Oh, clever girl.” She shook Karla’s poison vial at Surreal, and then nodded at the vials of Daemon’s venom. “Something for us to do together.”

Surreal nodded slowly. “Puzzles to put together, _together_.” And what better way to grow a familial bond than to find something they had in common and emphasize it by gifting them things related to it? Jaenelle had always had a knack for seeing such connections.

Tersa wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Will we start?”

“ _Now_?”

“So prickly! When better?”

Surreal cast a longing glance at the novels that Saetan had given her, but her desire to solve this mystery with Tersa was stronger, fueled by the eager look on Tersa’s face, the _alive_ look. Tersa was, after all, at her most clear-minded when working with her most innate abilities—and with her family.

“Now, then. But let me clear the table first.” Surreal rose to do so, but Tersa picked up the plates before she could, managing to collect Graysfang’s as well without the wolf awakening to protest about the theft of his remaining treats. Surreal subsided into her chair, vanishing her stiletto and calling in the final thing to make their Winsol night complete.

Tersa came back and pushed the stack of discarded wrapping paper under the table, then ferried the gifts—save for the books and the vials—back to the side table, out of the way. When she sat down, Surreal held the small silver cup up between them.

“She isn’t dreams made flesh anymore,” Tersa said severely.

“We drink to our own dreams, now,” Surreal replied.

“What do _you_ dream of?”

“Tonight? Family.” Surreal sipped at the blooded rum, trying not to grimace—it had never been her favorite; she got quite enough blood in her mouth at times as it was—and then offered it to Tersa.

“Family well chosen,” Tersa said, and drank. She set the cup down well away from their little vials. “Read to me? My eyes ache in this light.”

Surreal smiled, picked up the first of their shared books, and began to read.


End file.
